Nightmare
by The Abbot of Beregost
Summary: A Hunter: The Reckoning story. Looking for co-authors. A young man working at a truckstop sees the world as it is, for the first time...and decides to take back the night.UPDATED- Chp3 up.
1. Default Chapter

A/N: This is the much-lauded Hunter story I'm trying to get going. Want in? Drop me a line.   


Hunter: the Reckoning- Nightmare

Chapter 1

I never expected this, not in the least. There I was, standing behind the counter in the dying days of summer at the diner where I worked. I was trying to work up some money for college working at this grease pit on the edge of town -and I use that term liberally- near the interstate. It wasn't pleasant in the least... the place was little more than a deep fryer, a few gas pumps and some whores waiting around outside. The only people that came by were truckers. The pay was crappy, but there were plenty of hours. So, at any rate, I was there, late Tuesday night, dreaming of far away college and its beautiful women. It was pouring like something else, and there were only a few people in the place. A couple of the hookers had come inside for a cup of coffee, but most of them had gone home. A few truckers sat in stalls, looking outside. It was near midnight, and my shift had been done for ten minutes. I had been grumbling for twenty, but the owner (stereotypically named Red, no less) wouldn't let me go.

So I'm standing there, staring at the cash machine with blurry eyes, right. I look up, and there's a trucker just walking in. I really couldn't have cared less. I'm practically asleep on my feet, and my vision drifts back down to the machine. Suddenly, the numbers on the display flow together. The little green bars read "HE IS NOT ALIVE". I blink, and the message is gone. When I looked up, there he is.

I don't know how I couldn't have seen it before. The "trucker" looked dead. I don't just mean pale-like-a-cheesy-goth dead. I mean DEAD. The flesh was hanging on his face. I could see it sag. I could see the eyes turning yellow, and I could see the little holes in his rotting skin. His plaid shirt, caked in what I thought were grease stains, was actually soaked in blood. Well, not blood. Ichor is a better word. It looked like Chunky soup six days old. I did a double take, and looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what I was. He held a tattered dollar bill forward with a scraggly arm, repeating his order with a rasping voice. He asked if I was listening, but I wasn't. I recognized the bill...Sandy, one of the hookers around here, kept it as a souvenir of better times. It was a bill printed in 1920. Her father gave it to her. He was giving it to me. She was dead. I realized it before the rot realized something was wrong.

I just got so angry...I knew Sandy. Sandy was almost a friend. She hadn't hurt anyone, and this THING had killed her! It was the only way she would have given it up. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached over the counter, and I slugged it. The shock of the impact shot up my arm, hurting more than it should have. I was impressed by the results, though. The zombie went flying backwards, lower jaw sent tumbling through a window. It screeched in agony and rage, cheeks shredded and hanging limply to cover something that wasn't there anymore. Blackened, diseased gums held but a few teeth...something unremarkable for a trucker or a dead man. Everything erupted into chaos at that moment. Red was going for the Ruger over-under shotgun he kept beneath the counter, one of the whores was going for a her purse, the rot was stumbling backwards, and everyone else was dashing for the exit. They scrambled over and around each other, fleeing into the rainy night.

Stumbling into some tables, it pushed itself back up, flying towards me and Red with hands -more claws than anything else- reaching towards us as Red brought the silvery 12-gauge to his shoulder. He fired the top barrel, hitting the thing in the chest. Putrid meat exploded backwards out of the thing's chest, spraying bystanders. Its steps faltered for a moment as Red stared in shock. He fired the second barrel, hitting in the shoulder and tearing the left arm off, leaving it dangling from but a slim cord of flesh. A shard of bone jutted sharply out of the stump. Red unflinchingly broke his shotgun open, emptying the spent shells as the thing kept advancing, holes in its decaying chest closing themselves before our very eyes. I just stood there, anger growing and growing. I should have been able to do something to save Sandy, I thought. Done something, spent something... she was a good person. As the rage and guilt built up, I felt something tear. This weird fog started to seep out of me, drifting towards the Thing. I saw the angry hooker holding a flaming dagger, bring it down into its back. The fog touched it, and the rancid flesh shrivelled up and turned to dust.

Each and every second the fog came out of me, I felt worse and worse. It screeched and swung its arms through the mist, but all it did was make things worse for itself. Finally, I slumped over, barely holding onto consciousness. Through half-closed eyes, I watched the crazy bitch stab the Thing as it collapsed, legs barely anything more than bones. It's claws swung at her, driving for the throat. I heard Red's command clearly...a shout of "**STOP**". The Thing's arms stopped moving inches before her throat. It looked up, perplexed for the second before Red ran up and reduced the Thing's head to a smear near a crater on the floor and the hooker's blade drove into its heart.

I fell to the floor, utterly exhausted. The truck stop was silent except for the wind howling through the shattered windows and the rain and blood slopping together on the white tiled floor. I looked around, realizing just how much had changed. The place was a shambles. Our lives, for that matter, were reduced to slim shades. Odds were that we were going to be blamed for Sandy's death. Red helped me, throwing one of my arms over his shoulders and helping me out of the wrecked restaurant. He still held his shotgun in one hand as he helped me out to his pickup. The streetwalker had taken off already. I passed out just as he slapped a seatbelt on me.


	2. Chapter 2

I heard clicking. At first it was distant, as I forced my way through the darkness. I came to, slowly opening my eyes to see..well, not much. Dim light off to my left, and various pieces of defunct machinery in front of me. I rolled over, sat up, and just about vomited. I felt horrible, sore all over and nauseous. Red was sitting there, loading pistol magazines. I guessed we were in his garage or something, with all the tools and stuff on the walls.

"So, you're up."

"Yeah, I guess."

The only light was clamped to his workbench, lighting a mess of bullets and shells. There were some full speedloaders, some full magazines, and a few trays of ammo just sitting there. He sat on a stool, probably one he brought home from his diner. Red was just staring at me, and all I could think was, _damn this is awkward_. I didn't know what had happened- had I imagined everything?

"Sooo..."

"Tell me right now, son...do you remember that thing at work?"

"Thing?"

"The zombie."

"You saw it too?"

"Yeah. Scared me shitless, but I saw worse in '73."

"'73?"

"Nam."

"Oh."

He turned around, slipped a magazine into an old-looking Colt 1911. He pressed the trigger, and the slide shot forward with a snap. He shoved it out of sight, and I head a snap click into place. He shifted his weight, trying to make a holster comfortable. Red looked back up at me.

"The police are going to want to explain that shit, son. A half-rotted corpse, a dead hooker, and a restaurant full of witnesses won't just disappear, you know."

"The police?"

The thought of police involvement provided a new, terrifying aspect to the night. How would we explain a blown-apart corpse that's half rotted? We couldn't, really. The local law wouldn't want to hear any of it, and the prospect of jail really didn't appeal to me.

"So...what do we do?"

"Well, the obvious answer is that we can't stay here. I don't know, somehow it seems...evil here. Wrong. Dangerous."

"So, we go. Then what?"

He sighed.

"While we were driving here, I saw a man change into a wolf. I saw another dead person on this street. It's not safe here, I know that much. I figure, I gots some friends from the war, they can keep us alive. Not for long, though. Just for a little bit, until we find others who can see this shit. Mack, he lives in Atlanta, so I want to get going right away."

"So what do I do?"

I Was flat out panicking. Sure, my dad owned some guns. Maybe I was crazy, I don't know. I didn't want to hurt any innocent people, but I didn't want those..._things_ to, either.

"You can come, or you can stay. If you come, we leave tonight once you grab your shit. And it's total war, then. No halfways. I'm going to kill every one of those god damn things I can."

I can't say I can blame him. He probably knew Sandy for years and years- I was just a summer worker. I nodded.

"I'm coming. What should I grab?"

"Clothes, first of all. After that, cash, weapons, and maybe some food. Travel light, we've got a ways to go."

He reached over his worktable, picked up a revolver and handed it to me. It felt so heavy.


	3. Chapter 3

I jammed the gun into my belt. Red didn't give me a holster, so my pants sagged a little bit. We left his house, scanning everywhere. It was insanity. A few hours ago, I was just another wageslave at a restaurant. Now, I was seeing monsters and walking around with a loaded gun in my pants. We both scanned the street as we got into the old pickup. Red heaved a few bags into the bed, and started the engine.

"Do you know know to use that thing?" Red asked me belatedly as we drove towards my house.

"Left here. Yeah, I guess. I won't blow my nuts off."

"Good stuff."

I reached down, pulled it out, and hit the cylinder release. '.38+P' glinted on the brass in the amber glow of a streetlight. Six rounds, double action. I thumbed the cylinder back in, twisted it until I felt a click. I had shot with my dad when I was younger, but nothing really serious. A few weekends at the range, that's it.

Red parked right in front of my house, leaving the car on as I jogged across the lawn. I was still wearing my work clothes, so I hoped everything would be where I left it. Reaching into my left pocket, I pulled out my keys and quietly slipped into the house. I left the front door open, and tried to keep quiet. Hell, I didn't even know why I had the pistol.

My first stop was my room, where I stuffed clothes into a backpack and a gym bag, until they both almost burst. I grabbed some hiking boots,my laptop and threw them into the bed of the truck. I went back, thinking. Dad had some guns, but they were mostly rifles. Rifles aren't exactly something you can hide, and in a big city like Atlanta they would definitely raise a few eyebrows. I was thinking, but in a panic. I hated doing it, but I emptied the cash from Mom's purse, and headed for the garage. Dad slept with a pump shotgun close by, but it wasn't worth the risk.

I undid the lock on the gun safe, looked around. There was a bunch of rifles, another pump shotgun, a target pistol, and few handguns. I just grabbed the non-target pistols, all the ammo and the shotgun and a woodaxe. We had to go, we had to leave the city, never look back...

That's when things got sloppy. Both my arms were full- I had a shotgun slung over my back, an axe in one hand, a brace of pistols in their little boxes, and a pile of precariously stacked ammunition on top. It was a juggling act, and I never was much good with my hands. I dropped the axe going to a falling box of nine millimeter. I heard voices in the other room, and started running. Red just sat there, watching as I scooped up the axe, heaved everything into the back and dived across the hood. He peeled out, and as he did I saw the lights go on in my parents' bedroom.

I started feeling guilty, afraid and tired, but Red just looked supernaturally calm. Let me explain about Red- the entire time I'd known him up to this point, he'd been a scraggly, old, balding, greasy motherfucker. He was always angry, dirty, and cheap. He had been my boss at that dive, and I hadn't seen him as anything else. He seemed like everything I never wanted to be: old, bitter, stuck in a dead-end job doing nothing more than flipping burgers and yelling all day. But in the dark, that night, as I leapt into the truck, I saw he had his gun drawn. He had been ready to shoot another going after me. That surprised me, I guess. Gave me a newfound respect for him.

The road was long. We crossed the state line into Alabama at around four in the morning, by my watch. About ten minutes later, I saw a motel. It was a dirty-ass, ramshackle thing, but hey...we needed to sleep. Red was practically asleep at the wheel. We rented one room, hauled all our gear in. There was quite a bit of it, mostly weapons. Of course, this was backwoods Alabama, so no one looked twice, if there was anyone around. We spread it all out on the floor, took inventory. I had enough clothes for a few days, as did Red. There were about nine pistols total- a Glock 9mm, a Ruger .40, three 1911's, a Browning HP, and three revolvers. Two were .357's, like the one I carried (though mine was full of .38 wadcutters), and the last one was a .44 magnum. Three shotguns -my pump and two over-unders- and a dizzying array of sharp things also littered the floor.

Next to the weapons I had my laptop. I connected it, perched it on a large rucksack and started to surf the web. Red sat there on the threadbare carpet and cleaned each gun in turn with practiced hands. We had thousands of rounds of ammunition- mostly 9mm and .45, but a fair spread that could raise some eyebrows. He finished wiping down the Glock, loaded a magazine and chambered a round. He put it down beside me without a word, turned off the lights, and crawled into bed. So, I sat there in the darkness, basking in the pale light of my monitor until daybreak. It was clear what I was expected to do.


	4. Chapter 4

I sat there, listening to music quietly, for a few hours. You know, just cruising the Internet. My first stops were pretty typical- a few webcomics, some news and a series of IM programs. But it just didn't seem the same. Same music I listened to every day, visited the same sites, chatted with the same people...everything was different. I tried to shake the feeling, but I couldn't.

The room was dark, lit only by the screen of my laptop. I dragged the Glock as I shifted around the room, trying to get comfortable. My back was really bothering me, I guess. I rolled around a little, lying on my stomach. I must've hit something, because next thing I know I'm at this weird anonymous-liberty site. I don't know, it was Jack Ruby type stuff. I filled out this quiz they threw at me, and suddenly...enlightenment.

Hunter-net was a blessing. I almost woke Red up to read some of the posts. I bookmarked all the sites- Firelight, Unity, Vigil, the works. Okay, let me explain. I'm not crazy. There really are monsters in this world, and some kickass cosmic force seems to be picking people at random to take up the sword and fight back. Not only that, said force of the universe has gifted us with powers.

Needless to say, wow.

I registered as student243, and spent until dawn reading. Red was up, but he had only gotten a few hours of sleep. He grumbled, looked around.

"Hey, anything happen."

"Nope."

"Good, let's get moving. Pack up the gear, we'll get breakfast at Waffle House. Oh, and Jesus kid, get yourself a holster for that thing."

I grumbled and got to work as Red grabbed himself a shower. Rooting through the gear bag, I managed to find an old Uncle Mike's that fit on my belt nicely. Just as I was putting the Glock in there, my body seemed to remember it needed fuel. I changed, and since Red was so close, I guess I figured it was okay to grab a can of Pepsi or something. Bad idea.

I was walking over to the machine, sweatshirt hiding most of the gun, when I saw him. Something was off. I looked at him again as he passed me, really concentrated. He was surrounded by darkness, that's the only way I could describe it. He was two doors down from us. Without realizing it, I had the gun drawn, hidden by my leg. I holstered back up, ran back to our room. Red was just stepping out the shower. I told him everything.


End file.
